Gruuthuse Museum Bruges

The Gruuthusemuseum is a museum of history and applied arts . The museum is housed in the 15th-century city castle or city palace of the lords of Gruuthuse. The Gruuthuse Museum has a varied collection of historical objects and decorative art from the 13th to the 19th century.

In the museum you travel through three crucial periods in the rich history of Bruges. Firstly, the Burgundian highlight of the city, then the often underexposed period of the 17th and 18th centuries and finally the rediscovery of Bruges in the 19th-century neo-Gothic that is so typical of the city. These three periods come to life in the more than 600 collection pieces , each of which tells its own story. From majestic tapestries to Gothic stained glass windows , from elegant wood sculptures to refined historical lace , from paintings from different periods to a 17th and 18th century set table with silver cutlery and precious Chinese porcelain.

The guideline throughout the museum is 'Plus est en vous ', the motto of Lodewijk van Gruuthuse , the man who gave the palace the necessary grandeur in the 15th century. This slogan is mentioned several times in the large entrance gate to the palace.

Especially in the original medieval prayer chapel , built in 1472, one still imagines oneself in the late Middle Ages.

Willem Vandenameele